DCP Midstream cuts 15 positions in Weld, 65 in Colorado

Colorado's DCP Midstream announced on Monday a cut of 300 positions across its 17-state footprint, but only a fraction of which are out of Weld County.

The Denver-based company primarily works to connect oil and gas extraction companies to refineries.

Roz Elliott, spokeswoman for DCP Midstream, said the 300 cuts, which include 65 total in Colorado and 15 in Weld County, aren't a one-for-one representation of people who lost jobs, though.

"We were able to mitigate the effect on people because we did not fill roles," Elliott said. "We've consolidated some functions here at the head office."

Still, some layoffs were inevitable. Elliott did not have an exact number of people who were laid off, but she said it is significantly less than the 300 positions that were cut.

"Today we did say goodbye to a lot of wonderful people who have been a part of this company in an important way," Elliott said.

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Overall, the company will reduce its positions to 2,900 across the United States. The company dropped its Weld workforce to 225 positions. In Denver, that number fell by 50 to 585.

Elliott said seeing a continued downward trend in the oil and gas industry, officials have been trying to become more efficient since 2014.

"We could see this tough, prolonged (downturn) cycle, so we said let's not replace roles and let's be very prudent," she said. "Because we've been thinking about this for over 18 months, we've been very proactive at resetting the business and thinking about how we can do work more efficiently."

DCP Midstream also announced Monday it has reduced its capital budget to $250 million.

The news comes among many other workforce slashes in the oil and gas production industry.

The industry has plummeted since the drop-off started in 2014, when the price per barrel dropped from a more than $100 market in the early summer to a dismal $55 market at the end of 2014. The market just kept falling from there. Prices closed Monday at $36.79 per barrel.

According to a Baker Hughes rig count for April, Colorado is down to 17 operating rigs from 37 a year ago. In April 2014, there were 63 rigs operating in Colorado.

In March, Denver-based Anadarko, which has its Denver-Julesburg basin headquarters in Platteville, laid off 1,000 employees from its global workforce. Denver-based Encana laid off 20 percent of its global workforce last month.

The struggling industry saw countless layoffs throughout 2015. In April, Noble, one of Greeley's largest employers, laid off 20 employees in the Greeley headquarters and another 80 in Denver as part of a company-wide layoff of 220 employees in the United States. Another 180 were let go in November — 45 positions in Denver and 25 in Greeley.

Other U.S. companies that announced large layoffs in 2015 were Halliburton (6,400), Baker Hughes (7,000) and Schlumberger (9,000).

Elliott said it's important for support companies like DCP Midstream to keep pace with the rest of the industry.

"It's all about matching pace. The key is that our goal is to be sustainable in any market environment," she said. "You need to be able to be efficient in any commodity market."

She said they will be ready to ramp up production as soon as the market comes back up, but meanwhile, for efficiency, the company had to make cuts where it could.

"We've been working very diligently over the past year," she said. "We got out very much in front of it. The fact that we were able to offset it somewhat is something that's very important to us."